Chris Christie pressed on ‘Bridgegate’ at town hall

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was asked directly about the “Bridgegate” scandal at a town hall-style event on Thursday for the first time since the traffic controversy was linked to his office earlier this year.

The question added to the growing number of tense moments at these trademark Christie events, where he has largely found refuge in friendly crowds following January’s revelations.

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The Republican leader, a potential 2016 White House hopeful, called on a man in the audience who asked why he seemed to fire aide Bridget Anne Kelly for lying and not for her apparent involvement in the scandal itself.

The affair stemmed from last September’s closing of lanes onto the George Washington Bridge in the town of Fort Lee. Democrats allege the lanes were closed, causing days of massive traffic jams, as part of a political payback scheme.

Christie disputed the man’s take on the firing, which the governor announced during a Jan. 9 marathon news conference. The governor met with the press after the surfacing of an email from Kelly, written prior to the lane closures, that said: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

“There were lots of reasons for the firing,” Christie said Thursday about his former deputy chief of staff. ” … If she told me the truth, she would have gotten fired, too, because of what she did, but I never had a chance to hear the truth.”

He said he tried to convey at his press conference that he considered the alleged lane closure scheme itself — not just the lying — unacceptable.

“My view was that inherent to what I was saying was that I disapproved of the act also, and I did, and do,” Christie said.

The governor said at the Jan. 9 press conference that he’d “terminated [Kelly’s] employment because she lied to me.” He also apologized for the lane closures and said the conduct of “some of the people on my team” was “completely unacceptable and showed a lack of respect for the appropriate role of government and for the people that we’re trusted to serve.” He denied any personal involvement.

On Thursday, Christie also responded to the man’s assertion that ordering the lane closures looked like a crime. Federal prosecutors in New Jersey — whose office Christie used to lead — are looking into the controversy, along with a Demcratic-led state legislative panel.

“I’m going to put aside the question of whether it’s legal or illegal because there are prosecutors looking at this and all the rest of it. And I’ve said all along as governor since I used to be a prosecutor that I don’t talk about that kind of stuff because I want the prosecutors to do their job, and we’re letting them do their job,” said Christie.

It was Christie’s sixth town hall-style event since the release of extraordinary emails and texts escalated the scandal in January.

Before Thursday, he had pointed to the absence of questions about “Bridgegate” at the events as proof the media cared about the issue more than New Jersey residents did. Audience members had previously alluded to the investigations or offered encouraging words to Christie, but none had elicited a direct response from the governor about the substance of the controversy.

Christie did not call on a group of attendees wearing white T-shirts with lettering that, according to reporters present, spelled “Bridgegate.” At Christie’s last town hall on Tuesday, protesters were led out after starting a chant accusing him of mishandling Superstorm Sandy recovery funds.

An attorney for Kelly, who is fighting a state legislative subpoena for documents about the scandal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The attorney said after a recent court appearance about the subpoena that Kelly was innocent of wrongdoing and “a 42-year-old single mom with four children trying to make do in a difficult time.”